A Place of Rest For Fallen Sons
by Servant of Fire
Summary: AU, Alternate Civil War Universe. How reading the war journal of Captain America altered Tony's way of thinking to the point of totally altering the course of the Superhero Registration Act. And how Steve had a dark side, whose name was "Bucky Barnes"...
1. Chapter 1 Cap's Got a Dark Side

**A Place of Rest For Fallen Sons~**

 **For the friend that followed me through war~**

 **( WARNING: This chapter contains spoilers for Avengers 2)**

 **Chapter One: Captain's Got A Dark Side~**

It had started with something as simple as a conversation.

Tony had sauntered up to the bar during the Revel, and leaned over the counter, chatting with Natasha about various things.

"Talking dirty to the kids, Tony?" Steve had jibed coming up behind him, to ask for a drink of his own.

" You know I just don't get what the deal is with you...You're like Joan of Arc or something." Tony quipped.

Steve said nothing in reply, but had laughed hard out of his nose, and taken a whole bottle of whiskey with him.

"Well, that was...not like Steve." Natasha mused, watching him slip off.

"Was it something I said? Get his prissy little panties in a wad?"

"Nah...something's on his mind...Probably something not as happy as finally getting our hands on Loki's scepter."

"Probably the state of our souls. I'm telling you the guy is actually the 95 -year- old virgin."

Natasha smiled showing all her teeth, and stared off into space.

"Aw come on Tony...That's what makes him Captain America..."

"Look, I just can't trust a guy that doesn't have a dark side."

" Everybody has a dark side...Some people..it's harder to see. And the Cap here...he's...deeper than you think. Sunk to the bottom of the ocean, frozen solid for 70 years deep..."

"Ooh..what prompted the lecture? You know something on Cap, ha, come on ,spill to me, I'm dying to get some dirt on Saint Steven."

Natasha whipped out an old leather- bound book.

"What is this?" Tony asked reaching a hand out and touching it gingerly like it was a fossil.

"It's a book, Tony. You read it."

"Yeah, well ,duh, I mean what's the book about?"

Nat smiled. "Ok, so maybe it isn't fair, but I wanted to get in the Cap's head, figure him out. I...care...you know...about all these random bouts of depression? It's not good for the team. And..I thought if I could read him better...I could help him. He's been messed up since we found out about his friend..."

"Friend? Steve actually has those?"

"This is the War Journal of Captain America. I stole it from him. He doesn't know I've got it, and I want us to keep it that way, 'kay?"

"So if it's such a hushy hush secret...why are you giving it me?"

"I'm _loaning_ it to you...I've...uhh...I read it..." she got a really far away look in her eyes, and looked at the floor.

"Why would you blow all Cap's secrets ,huh? I mean... you have, or you had, a lot of stuff to keep close to the vest yourself. Isn't this kind of a betraying trust type thing?"

"Well, yeah, but I'm a spy...laundering people's secrets is what I do best...And I'm loaning this to you in confidence...because I think...if we're going to keep this whole Avenger's thing up...there are some things that you need to know about the Captain. Don't..tell him..that I told you, don't tell him that I gave that...to you...I'm going to sneak it back to his personal stuff when you're done with it...Just...you...guys...need to be on equal footing. But you need to get one thing straight in your head. Steve Rogers most definitely has got a dark side. His name was Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. And he came from the long ,long time ago little fairy land of World War 2, which was worse than your worst nightmares ,Tony."

"Ah, for him to be still so fluffy bunny tail pure, it couldn't have been all that traumatic."

"Well, yeah,...it could. You'd think by now somebody like you would recognize machine parts when you see them. I guess he just got too good at putting on the face, turned on that machine personality. There's a whole lot you don't know about him Tony. And there's stuff about your Dad in there too...There's...stuff in there...Uhh...let's just say the movies were full of candy- coated lies. God bless Captain America..."

Tony stood holding the book for a moment.

"Yeah, sure, whatever, I'll give it a look-see sometime, like possibly never. Thanks Romanov!"

When sometime came it changed Tony's life, as well as the face of the future...


	2. Chapter 2: Never Sleep

**Chapter 2: That Which Never Lets Me Sleep~**

He's having that dream again, the one that when it finally does wake him up is going to leave him shivering and crying like a little kid lost in his grandad's creepy basement. He always feels pretty shaken-up after it, and he drinks heavily, but of course the serum has made the drink benign and he does it now from unbroken habits.

 _"It's Bucky, and he looks like he's got something in his arms..."_

 _Steve stood on the log and followed the angle of Dugan's finger as he pointed to Bucky coming through the forest their direction._

 _He was burned, a mortar obviously having gone off really close to him. He was crouched over a blurry little object too, holding it flush with his body, protectively..._

 _"Buck! Thank God,we about gave you up for dead!" Steve cried, running towards him._

 _He stopped short when he saw what he was carrying._

 _"I found her...wandering around...in the woods...I was afraid of what the..uhmm...what the Jerry's would do to her,...especially since she's not got any clothes on..." Bucky said awkwardly, revealing a tiny little girl, asleep at his chest._

 _Steve felt like he had a canonball collide with his chest._

 _The child was looking around with wide, hungry, terrified eyes._

 _"Hey, honey...Uhh..." Steve licked his lips trying to figure out what he should say..._

 _"I've tried talking to her...I don't think she speaks English..." Bucky said, hopelessly._

 _They were in France. Steve looked over at Jacques, pleadingly._

 _Jacques came and leaned over the little girl._

 _"Ou est ta mere?" he asked ( Where's your mother?)_

 _The little girl looked straight up into Bucky's eyes. She wouldn't take her eyes off of him, not for a second, as if he was the only person in the world._

 _" L'homme...a la peau rouge...Me nourris...avec son couer..." ( The man with red skin...fed me...with her heart...)_

 _Jacques translated slowly and awkwardly, and Steve felt vomit rise to the top of his throat, and he had to swallow it before it came up. Bucky stared at her...wide eyed...in disbelief._

 _"He...he...?" Bucky stammered, and fell silent._

 _The little girl started crying._

 _"J'ai mal au ventre!" ( My stomach hurts) she whined. Jacques didn't translate this time. The little girl wrapped her arms around Bucky's neck, and clung for dear life._

 _"Sorry...I don't...I don't know how to help you, doll." Bucky whispered,cradling her, and stumbling to sitting beneath a tree._

 _Steve came and sat side by side Bucky and the child, and Dugan built a fire, making sure it was one that would put off white smoke, which might still be risky, but for the kid's sake they decided they'd go ahead with it this one night._

 _The little girl couldn't understand a word he was saying, but Bucky started telling her a story about a really long time ago ,when he and the Cap were kids, how they got lost after dark too. His soft voice, and the fire, and the dark of the French forest was soothing enough to make the little girl calm. Steve sat there like he were made of stone, holding his shield, not even remembering to be vigilant, so stunned was he by the Red Skull's cruelty._

 _The little girl pressed her head down over Bucky's heart and closed her eyes._

 _She died in his arms before the sun came up..._

Steve sat bolt upright, and screamed, like a cougar in the high and lonely American Somewhere -Mountain. He was raining sweat, and he was crying, as only half awake he could still remember the look of horror on Bucky's face when he realized the little girl was dead.

"I didn't...I didn't know what to do!" he had gasped, shaking his head. "I'm...I'm sorry...I didn't...know...how..." he had said, all the life sucked from his eyes.

Just the memory of Bucky's face was enough to send Steve into wave after wave of cracked sobs.

"She's dead...I couldn't...And so are you...so are you...I'm sorry...I wish I could...I'd have...fallen too...I wish I did..." Steve cried, unaware of how childlike he was in this one moment.

Bucky's memory was enough to break Steve, but it was also enough that in that shattered , gun shot ringing moment bring him to cold and swift reality.

He realized all at once that he was tangled up in his sheets and had them slick with sweat.

He realized that he was crying like a tiny kid, that his face was filthy from it. He realized that all the images running through his head brought on by this dream was just his mind replaying something that no amount of time on Ice could heal. He realized that Bucky was sort of alive actually, only now he was the autonomous slave of Hydra. Might as well be dead... That was actually worse...

He realized that he had vomitted on himself.

"Ecccck!" he groaned, coming to full terms with reality.

He got up, ripped the sheets off his bed, and threw them in a pile on the floor. Stumbled to the bathroom, pealed his fouled clothes off and clambered in the shower. Sat in the floor of it, with the hot water streaming over him, knees folded up to his chin, holding his legs to conserve heat, as he shivered like someone dying of frost bite.

"One weird thing about cyro-freeze, Buck, you never feel comfortably warm again..."


	3. Chapter 3: Mine Is Iron Guilt

**Chapter 3: Mine Is Iron Guilt~**

He sat in his garage. He was the mechanic;... he built things. That's how he could protect the world.

But the same guilt that caused him to sin, just won't let him go...

Tony sits in the middle of his machines, watching the Age of Ultron on repeat in his head.

Over and over and over again...

But one thought keeps coming back to him.

They should by rights have killed him. His team...What he had done, they could have, they had the right to turn on him, like he was every bit the threat of other radicals of the past, Ultron,Red Skull,...He might as well be in the same boat of bananas as Hitler.

What kept coming back to him was the forgiveness. His team...forgave him.

And then there was Cap.

Spotless scape goat Captain America. The one that he'd been trying to save with his inventions. The one man that for all his trash talking about had been very much like a father figure to him. Well, maybe more like a big brother.

When they parted ways he hadn't said what he deserved to hear. What he felt like he deserved to hear was "God I hate you Tony, I hope I never have to work with you again.." or "Don't destroy the world while I'm away Tony, remember how bad your trying to help screwed everything up last time?"

No, it was just, " I'm going to miss you."

Honest to God as the super-soldier was...he knew he had told him the truth.

As he sat in the silence of his guilt, surrounded by his machines...Tony remembered the book Natasha had handed him.

He had locked it up in his dad's old painted fire engine red ,steel tool box.

Almost subconsciously, he went to it...and knelt next to it, unlocking it, and prying it open.

There it lay like Excalibur in Arthur's legend...

Tony shook his head.

"I can't believe I'm actually doing this..." he muttered, picking it up, and slamming the lid on the toolbox. "He probably writes poetry, or essays...or some crap like that..."

He sat on the toolbox, crossing his legs on the tile, and opened the journal.

Cap hadn't marked his entries with dates. He marked them by occurences.

The one on the first page was "Girl in the Woods"...


	4. Chapter 4: To My Knees

**Chapter 4: To My Knees~**

The first page, and Tony was already sitting there stunned and tongue tied.

"Oh my God..what the heck have I just picked up!" he whispered, as he tried to mentally process the written version of Steve's nightmare.

He could not believe that this book was written by that same Star- Spangly guy that told him to clean up his language,and reminded him to brush his teeth after every mission ( yes...he had actually done that once or twice...)

"This is the Star-Spangled spokesperson for the American Dental Association?!" Tony thought, and clung to the book in shaking hands...

He didn't want to,but he knew he'd keep reading.

The next entry was called , " Jacket-Bandages"~

* * *

" It's getting colder...and as I write this,...the little red smudges I'm leaving on the page are actually specks of Bucky's blood. The rain is making the dried flecks of it that are stuck to my hands smear on the page. It's sickening, and I can't wrap my head around what happened today. I'm just thanking God with all my strength that he's still alive, and he's laying in my lap right now, fast asleep ( I'm actually using his chest as a writing desk; he doesn't seem to mind...)

God! What am I going to do if something happens to him?! It's a hell I have to live with everyday. I think it will kill me too. I hope it does. I'm praying if one of us buys it, it'll be me.

He looks just like he did when we were about 13 laying here. He's blue around the mouth from bleeding so much, and every so often he will scrunch up like a yo yo and cough. I try to make him be still, because the bandage we made out of Jim's jacket isn't holding on too good. He swears as long as he can carry his rifle he's sticking it out with us. I just so wish I could send him ,and Peg, and all these boys home where they'll be safe...

Anyway...I guess I'll write what happened, so that I'll stop thinking about it. Kinda funny, I just ran my hand through Buck's hair like I did when we were real little, and he got sick. That used to put him right back to sleep, and it was always pretty funny spiking his hair up to look like horns on the Devil or something. Plus his mouth used to twitch when I did that, like a cat's does when you flick water in its face. I guess being the little guy, I had to get a good laugh in at his expense...sometimes. I'm definitely NOT laughing now..This time when I did it, he reached up in his sleep, and clutched my hand. He held on to it for 10 whole minutes. It was my left hand, I write with the other one, so I just kept on jotting this down. Still, it bugs me though...We're more like Lost Boys in this woods than we are Howling Commandos. Me and him, lost in the woods...Scared like kids, and holding hands for dear life. Better not tell anybody; they'll think its sissy. But then the ones who would think that would wet their pants if they were in my combat boots; this isn't exactly a pennies-from-heaven kind of job!"

Tony felt his stomach ball up in a knot the size of a grapefruit, and ache in buzzing little spasms as he read the rest of the story.

"It was brutal. One of the most brutal things I've ever seen...We were chasing some of Hydra's thugs through a German pasture. Buck was farther back so he could snipe them off from the higher ground. We lost him in the fog; that happens a lot since he has to stay back off of the rest of us to snipe those punks at long range.

Bucky accidentally stumbled into the barn ,where the farmer's daughter was with her American soldier boyfriend. The guy took off, but the girl was scantily dressed. Buck realized his mistake a bit too late, and was trying to get out of there unnoticed, but the girl screamed. I guess the guy thought that Bucky was trying to abuse his daughter...but he came out with a fencepost driver and..."

Tony almost puked at what was on the page, and couldn't look back at the book for a long ,long time.

"...By the time I found him, he was going into shock. I did what I could...but I'm not a medic...There wasn't a medic anywhere for miles. But thankfully Falsworth's dad was a doctor, so he knew some things, and that helped a million. We had to cut Bucky's shirt just to make it wide enough to slip up over his head, so we could get a look at the horrible wound on his abdomen. When we did we realized there was a piece of metal stuck in it. Jim's hands were the smallest, so we decided he'd be the one to pluck it out without messing Buck up more. I took him under the arms, and let him lay in my lap, and it took Dugan and Gabe, one at each knee, to hold him down. Falsworth was trying to staunch as much of the blood as he could. When Jim finally reached the metal and jerked it out, Bucky wrenched so violently that he tore one of his arms free and busted me in the mouth, and his other arm came swinging into Falsworth's head, and knocked him out cold. He reeled and threw up, and then passed out sliding off into it. Gabe had a bandana we wiped his face off with, and then Jim tyed the wound up with his outer jacket. When he woke up, Buck felt bad for dieing it red, but Jim just said,"Ah Buck, this way I can keep you close to the vest!..Sort of..." It took us 3 hours to wake Falsworth up. Bucky apologized about 73 times, before Falsworth finally pulled his tea-tin out of his bag, made a cup for both of them over the hot coals Jim keeps in an old milk tin, and whatever that crap is made of put Buck back to sleep. Falsworth is crying his head hurts so bad, but he's laughing at the same time...I'm too exhausted to write anymore."

Tony couldn't bring himself to _read_ any more. He knew that Nat didn't want him to tell Steve he had his jounral, but...well...Tony doesn't follow orders generally.

He stood up, feeling shaky in the legs, and pulled out his phone. He had Steve on speedial under "Grandpa Rogers".

"Hello?" a tired voice answered.

"Uhh...yeah...Steve...Are you...around? Like somewhere where I could have you flown to the tower...like within the next flight time...'cause uhh..."

Tony paused, chewing his nails.

"'Cause you need to talk to me about something?"

"Well...uhh yeah...but in ...person...I ...I really screwed up, man, and I've been toying with some rough decisions. A really, really scary book made me think it's probably better to confide what I'm planning in my team ,though..."

Steve sighed..

"Nat gave you my journal, didn't she?"

"Uhh...no. Yes. How'd you know?"

"Because it's not with my stuff, and it'd be just like her to steal it?"

"Ok...so yeah alright, I read your journal ,Gramps... I made it to page 2 before it started to make me throw up...Can you uhm...I..uh...will you just come, please?"

"I'm in the building."

"...What?"

"I was coming to ask you a favor ,Tony. So ,yeah, if you can wait for me to ride the elevator up there, I'll sit down with you and have that talk that everybody ends up having with the veteran in the family..."


	5. Chapter 5 Where I Pray

**Chapter 5: This Is Where I Pray~**

Steve's shadow had barely hit the floor, when Tony turned around,gave him the once-over, and started jawing.

"Ok, so you look like hell, and you probably feel like hell, 'cause I know I do. I wanted you to come here, so I could fess up about what possessed me to build the evil Godzilla of Robots that almost wrecked the Millenia, and I need your old person advice about some choices I've got to make in the aftermath of all of that. But before any of that...I've got to know...Bucky...What happened to him?"

The room rang death-knell quiet, and Steve just stared forlornly at Tony for a long time.

"That's...what I came..to talk to you about...You can hack into the internet and find just about anything or anyone, can't you?"

"Well, yeah...I kinda need a lead though; the internet is a glorified encyclopedia..."

"You actually know what that is?"

"Yeah,uh, not important. Bucky Barnes, your best pal since infancy. What happened to him, Steve?..."

"You...didn't finish the book, I take it."

"Well no..I couldn't get past the intro..."

Steve came slumping in, and sank down on the couch of the visiting room. (Tony had moved to the top floor when he realized that's where Steve was going.)

Tony took incentive, and sat next to him.

Steve drew a deep breath.

"He...died."

Tony looked at him in horror. Why would Steve be trying to find a dead man?

"And then...Hydra got their hands on him. So technically he died and went to Hell..."

Steve pulled a file out from under his shirt.

"The Winter Soldier? That's a bedtime story, I hacked into the Pentagon, and read about him when I was like 9..." Tony gasped.

"Yeah, well, then you know the legend of how the Winter Soldier was fabled to be an American sniper who died and was resurrected as the Frankenstein's monster of all assassins..."

Tony froze.

"Now that you read the true story of Bucky Barnes, you see how that legend makes so much more sense..."

"So..did he die from what the farmer did to him?"

Steve smiled."Nah, Buck is too tough for that. He bounced back pretty quickly,...was using a little tree as a crutch, and sniping Hydra thugs two days later. We made him eat soup though ,so he wouldn't keep barfing all over the place. ..."

"...Nice."

"No, he...I couldn't...catch him...He fell out of a train into a ravine."

"There is so much more to this story than that..."

"Yeah...which is why I wrote the book. I knew I'd need help...notes...something to prompt the questions if I was ever gonna tell it man to man. I just...can't dredge all that up by sheer force of will..."

Tony nodded.

" I have to do hard things...Cap...Can you tell me how you did it? Who were they really? The Howling Commandos...Bucky...How did they manage to pull it off.?"

Steve smiled.

"They were Fallen Sons of America...They were my brothers, too. Kind of literally with Bucky,we grew up together (after being orphaned at a younger age) in Brooklyn...Any history book, or tv program, or web documentary will tell you the same old conventional story of World War 2. It might look that way from first appearances for us too. But in the midst of all of that, we were fighting a much fiercer war. We were fighting Hydra...But for the grace of God one of us made it out alive to tell the story...It goes kinda like this, turn to page 3"

Tony did, and read aloud.

" Snapping The Cap"

Captain America smiled at the yellow worn pages, and began to tell his story...


	6. Chapter 6: Tears of America

**Chapter 6: Tears of America~**

"Back in the day..."Steve began, "We used to say "Don't snap your cap" when we meant, "don't get overly angry". Well, I wrote this like this...because...this entry is about the day I totally lost it on the field...It was on a mission where we were hunting down Zola's personal "Electrician", a hired scientist who experimented with human torture based off of volts of electricity, trained to go in paths it...uh...it isn't supposed to..."

Tony was staring at Steve, feeling all the breath was sucked right out of him. This story...this , what really happened to him, what he had to do, what he survived... It was unbelievable. Tony had really misjudged this guy. Miscalculated the value of the Avengers...The consequences of his own actions...

Steve was starting to struggle over his words.

"...Uhh...we..well it was getting close to winter..so it was foggy, getting harder to see at twilight ... And we all got seperated from each other...Instead of hunting the Electrician, I ended up trying to track down the boys..."

Steve's jaw clenched, and he stared at his fists, struggling mightily with himself, like this story ,and the War itself ,was Leviathan in his belly, and he could not make it die. Tony was actually scared now. He could just about taste the burnt steel vapor of War lingering in the air around them. This was going to hit him really hard...

" I found them...in an abandoned farm house. The Electrician was in the process of stringing Dugan up from the rafters, and his toes were dragging the floor, fighting against the noose. Jim and Falsworth were passed out, whatever he had done to them had been too much for their systems ,I guess. Gabe was awake, but wrapped in log -puller chains, and was having an impossible time trying to break loose,... I actually finally found them by following the sound of all of his screams of rage. And Bucky..."

Steve's breath caught, and he looked dizzy, he white knuckled the denim around his knee caps, and swallowed ,struggling. Tony had broken out in a cold sweat, as if this story was happening right now, and not 70 years ago...

"Bucky was hooked up to an electric chair,that was...quite literally Jerry -rigged to work where he...he would suffer,...as much as he possibly could, for as long as he possibly could...I can't...He ...I can't say it. It's on the page. It was easier to write, but it was still almost impossible...But I still couldn't...not in detail. They don't have a rating system for how graphic it would be if you saw it on the silver screen...And when I saw him..."

Tony swallowed, and wrapped an arm around Steve's shoulders. Steve started nodding, and laughed, hysterically.

"I dunno, I just totally lost it. I cut Dugan down with my shield, and somehow managed to disable the chair thing. And then, I jumped on the Electrician, and I started swinging at him. Swing after swing after swing. Like my fists were made of concrete blocks...Over and over, and over... And...over,..."

Tony swallowed, trying to breathe. He clutched hard to Steve, leveling with him 100%, He would have done the same thing to the guy ,if not worse...

"He was...uhh...he was dead for a pretty long time, before I ...before I stopped. Bucky somehow...when he...when Dugan let him free...and went for Gabe...Bucky jumped on my shoulders, and pulled me off the corpse. I don't...I don't remember much later. I was catatonic after my rage. All I remember is my back landing hard against Buck's chest, as he slumped against a wall. I remember him arm wrestling with me with some kind of supernatural second wind, until I finally wore myself out, and I slumped against him. He just kept telling me over and over that it was alright, that everything was going to be alright. He smelled like a crematorium though, and so I just...I couldn't snap out of it...Jim came and used his jacket ,that was already permanently stained crimson by Bucky's blood from using it as a bandage a while before , and wiped the Electrician's blood off of me thinking that would make me snap out of it..."

Steve fell quiet, staring off into space, eyes wide remembering things now that were just a little too deep to say aloud. Tony just watched his face, and didn't try to speak to him. Wanted to let him coast through those rough seas in his head. Hoped to be some kind of lighthouse when he got close to shore again...

* * *

 _" Buck already made it bright red, so I'll go ahead and wipe you clean,pal!" Jim gasped, eyes still rolling in his head. Steve barely heard him. He felt Bucky's hands on his chest, one right above his heart._

 _"S'alright, buddy! Everything's alright..." Bucky said, voice droning like a bee around a lazy summer hive. Steve leaned against him, and stared at the rafters, confused._

 _Why was he so tired? Why was he covered in blood? Why did Bucky smell like fire?_

 _Dugan came tramping back up, followed by Falsworth and Gabe._

 _"We buried that punk!" Dugan gasped. "He's gone, Steve! You don't ever got to worry about him ever again! He's gone..."_

 _Steve slowly sat up and looked around at all of his friends. Their faces were exhausted, they were cut and bruised, and Dugan sounded hoarse. Slowly..he turned to look at Bucky, whose hair was standing on end, and his lips quivered incessantly. He was trembling,and couldn't stop..._

 _Oh,yeah..that's right. He had just been being electrocuted for hours..._

 _Buck smiled, bright white teeth flashing out from under all the grey and black of the dust of battle shadowing his face._

 _"Hey, pal, it's ok! Let's get out of here, alright?" he gasped, and reached a shaky hand out to Steve, and slowly they all stood up._

 _Instinctively Steve let Buck lean on his shoulders. Bucky smiled bravely, but his knees were knocking almost audibly together now._

 _"Better find a place to camp." Dugan croaked, and looked around._

 _"Right. We can't stay here, certainly." Falsworth remarked._

 _"Hey, I just remembered a spot that would give us some cover. The trees are so thick, you couldn't see anything in the air at night, so we could have a fire!" Gabe cried, taking off, signaling that he was going to lead the way._

* * *

 _It was later that night, when Steve and Bucky settled in their tent. Steve had borrowed some strips of cloth to use as bandages from Falsworth and Dugan's tent, and wanted to try and patch up what wounds he could._

 _Buck was laying in his bedroll, shivering like a heroin addict, and looked up at him ,sadly._

 _Steve tended each one of Bucky's burned fingers, taping the bandages snugly about the tips, being careful not to make them too bulky for him to hold his rifle. Always having to be mindful of the War..._

 _He was exceedingly glad that Bucky was with him, even though he wanted him to be far away and safe that night. It was something they could never tell a soul, but no sooner had the Cap tied off the last of Bucky's bandages than did he inadvertenly break into tears. He had never cried that hard in all his life. Anxiously, Bucky sat up, and drew him into a lion-fierce embrace. Just seeing Steve cry made Bucky crack, and before either of them could really wrap their heads around it, he was crying too. But not just crying. Sobbing. They were bawling like babies crawling down the path to Hell. Sobbing into each other's shoulders to keep from being heard. Had to be strong for the others...But weeping so profusely as to be in intense pain from just that part of it all, shoulders hitching so hard they could swear they heard something crack somewhere in one of their backs...they weren't sure whose..._

 _Bucky laid back down on his side, and drew Steve as close as he could get him. They laid there and cried themselves to sleep. None of the others ever knew about it. Steve couldn't bring himself to tell a soul, even now, 70 years later, when everyone he had to be strong for was all dead and gone. This was his and Bucky's dark secret, and they'd keep it that way. Which is why he didn't breathe a word to Tony about it..._


	7. Chapter 7: Tortured Spirit

**Chapter 7: Tortured Spirit~**

He has finally pushed a little too hard. He has finally lashed out under their whips and guns and chains like a starved lion against the Roman Legions. He has payed dearly for his sins...

Bucky looks up at a crack in the cieling above him, weeping light into this dim room where he is tormented night and day by Hydra for his rebellion. He has remembered too well for the brainwashing to work. He has done the unthinkable. He has started taking out his masters.

He is chained through the wrists, speared with sharp hooks, arms stretched out, and fixed like a puppet in its many strings. Above him are the chains on pulleys and iron cables, and boards. Below him is the big pit full of hot coals that the bosses continue to dump in day after day. Slowly he will be up to his feet in those coals. And when he is, they will dance him on the fire. Dance him to death, from these puppet chains upon which he hangs.

He looks up at the crack in the cieling of the abandoned resevoir where he is trapped. He lets the light glance off one side of his face, like enraptured rain from somewhere so holy and pure his thoughts cannot conceive it. He feels a warm breeze from the Other World, the World above him, where there is light, and the people, the living people, who rush past in the brightly colored cars , clueless of the gift they have in actually being allowed to live, and walk in the Sun.

He looks up , and lets that wind rustle his matted hair. He thinks for just one second there is a scent in that wind of water, and trees. And the world, where there is a sky...where there is color...

He looks back down into the coals he is being buried alive in. That warm friendly wind has stirred up those embittered coals, and heat wafts up to him like the battlefield anguish recalled.

He is going to die. A dancing death by fire. A horrific end, and fitting, for a man of ice soon to be melted out of a world gone straight to Hell.

He hangs his head, and gravity weighs him down.

He closes his eyes, and he fills up with darkness, like a glass phial being filled to brim with ink.

There is one last thought, one echo off the walls of a bloodless heart, and a thoughtless mind.

"Steve..."

He passes out again.


End file.
